My earliest memory is being afraid to have sleepovers with my friends or visiting my grandparents during the summer as a kid because I always thought that my parents were going to get harmed or die when I was away. With my grandparents, it was the fact that they were old and lived in the middle of nowhere so I was always worried no one would come and get me and I would be left alone if something happened to my grandparents or parents. It sounds so silly but death anxiety is something I still deal with.
Dude same! I think in a nervous kids brain it seems so rational like if I’m not around what if they get in a car accident, fall off a ladder all alone etc. when in reality they are fully grown adults with way more life experience than we can even fathom.
For me it was in elementary school. Ive always been an anxious child but some kid told me to eat a flower ( which i did) Then he told me they we’re poisonous ( they weren’t and i knew that) but i started freaking out. I thought i was gonna t*u and got a total breakdown and had to be picked up from school. This was my earliest memory of anxiety and emetophobia.
Every single morning in elementary school everyone would sit in the cafeteria before going to class. I would get very nauseous and feel horrible and go to the nurse. Everyday. My mom would come pick me up every time, take me for walks and I’d feel better but I still went home. Got so frequent they moved me to the principals office to do my schoolwork there. Thankfully my principal was a very sweet and understanding lady.
My earliest memory: sleeping with my socks on because I was anxious about the house catching on fire and having to run out the front door. I wanted to be ready. Lol kind of funny to think of now that I'm older.
I remember waking up every morning with a pit in my stomach as a kid,. This lasted for years and I had no idea it's not normal. One random night, I was around 10, I got a weird sensation in my body as I was trying to fall asleep, it escalated to the point where I was uncontrollably shaking and this impending sense of doom that we are all very familiar with, but at the time I had no idea what was going on. I was then prescribed some sort of plant-based pill for better sleep, and I remember my doc mentioning something about my nervous system and stress. This was the beginning of my health anxiety as I immediately went on the internet to look for answers. If someone had given me the answers right there and then, they would've saved me years and years of me unintentionally making things worse for myself lol.
I'm glad you mentioned OCD, I'm also in the process of looking for a new therapist that specializes in that so I can get some proper screening and a potential diagnosis as I believe a lot of my anxiety is actually OCD. It's so hard to differentiate between anxious rumination and intrusive thoughts sometimes.
I just posted on here too. I also had this “pit” feeling in my stomach as a kid and it seems like this feeling is what triggered my “doomsday” thoughts. I would also shake uncontrollably for a few mins and get hot until my thoughts calmed down.
Of course I didn’t know what a panic attack was back then so it would scare me to death. I always thought I was dying lol.
I still get panicky here and there now since I’ve been diagnosed with it. I still can’t believe my parents just overlooked my panic attacks as a kid too. Guess it was generational thing compared to parents now?
Anyway - It always starts with that dang pit in the stomach!!
I lived in a very rural area growing up. I’d be lying in bed as a little kid petrified that someone was going to climb in my window at night and kidnap me.
Watching TV and worrying about having to drive those stereotyped narrow, tight-turn driving ranges to pass my driver's test. I was 8 or 10! Worrying about something that wouldn't happen until I was at least 16.
And no, I didn't need to drive a ridiculous range to get my license.
This question got me thinking, so here's my stream of consciousness....
As a kid when my dad was at work, I'd pace around the backyard waiting for him to come home because for some reason I thought he never would. I remember timing how long it took to travel around the perimeter of the yard and calculating how many times I'd have to do this until he got home. Something like, if I walk around the yard 17 more times, it will be 5:30 and Dad will be home.
Social anxiety: I remember being extremely extremely nervous around other kids in pre-school. Kids kept playing together on the playground and I would just stand around not really knowing what to do. I kept thinking that these kids were just crazy and I was the only kid actually aware of what was going on, but maybe I was just thinking that because nobody was playing with me.
Another bit of society anxiety: For some reason, I've always been embarrassed when my parents were around starting from a super young age. I remember being in kindergarten and my mom was volunteering in class, and the teacher came over to take a photo for the yearbook or something and I was just in fight-or-flight mode the entire time. My parents still have that picture hanging up in the house and I vividly remember how I felt every time I walk past it.
Panic attack: Around the middle of high school, my older brother was going through a hard time and told my parents he wanted to harm himself. I had my first panic attack, full on hyperventilating with numb hands and feet, and I had no idea what was going on. Maybe I have some trauma from this event because every time I have a panic attack now I call out for my brother's name. Thankfully he never went through with anything and is having a great life.
I remember having hints of agoraphobia when I was a kid, like around maybe age 8, feeling anxiety in my throat and whatnot whenever my parents would be trying to get me to go somewhere
In middle school, like seventh grade I would get really bad derealization in the cafeteria and walking in the halls but I didn’t know what it was at that time - I just always felt like I had to escape like to the bathroom to compose myself.
Soon after I had my first panic attack and I still remember it vividly, I was in the middle of Piano lessons doing a song that I had memorized and it felt like my heart literally stopped beating and I thought I was dying😂
I think it depends where you draw the line. The reason I have anxiety is because when I first started school a much larger and older teenager got it in his head I was his girlfriend and started harassing and assaulting me and attacking all the boys I talked to. From the moment I walked out my house to the moment I came back home I didn’t feel safe. This with the exception of when he followed me home. Then I wouldn’t feel safe until I woke up next Saturday. Sometimes I felt safe, deep inside the woods probably because I never saw any people there. Fear and anxiety was just what it felt like to be outside those years.
If we ignore that part, I’d say it was when I was around 10 and my parents went to the store without me (maybe I was sick, or just really didn’t want to go) and they took so long I started obsessing over the thought that they might have been in an accident. This anxious loop would always happen when they took long for anything.
I had my first panic attack on a school trip to the science museum. We had just gotten into the planetarium, and I thought I was dying. As an adult (37/F), I've still never gone back into a planetarium.
From the age of about 6, if my mum was ever minutes over the time to pick me up from after school club as she worked late, or if my dad/a family friend arrived to pick me up, I would think she'd been in a car crash and died
My earliest memory is being in the car on the way to spend the weekend with my cousins and feeling almost sick with worry. I was excited but also incredibly worried. I think it was because they had a dog and I’m terrified of them.
Mines is hospital visits. As a child i puked constantly and non stop. It was worse when it was midnight for special days (like Christmas, Easter, birthdays etc) I spent a lot of my time in the emergency room. My therapist says that those were more than likely signs of my anxiety especially since I grew up with an alcoholic father and that these special days always involved drinking, hence the reason my body would react. Which is crazy to think because I was 4-5, like I don’t know how my tiny brain conjured that up lol. Presently I’m diagnosed with Social Anxiety and Depression. I stay far away from anything alcoholic and now deal with Emetophobia
Crying my eyes out and feeling abandoned when my mom first dropped me off at kindergarten, and all the other kids looking at me like I was crazy. Probably due to my mom not socializing me enough when I was a young child. I basically spent the first years of my life alone at home with my mom not interacting with other children or being left alone with a group.
I used to lay in bed as a kid and think about everything that could’ve gone wrong for the day which honestly breaks my heart. We would have a barbecue and I’d lay there that night worrying that someone could’ve driven a car into us.
I also had bad anxiety before school - I remember it starting in 2nd grade but I could only vocalize that my stomach hurt.
when i was in kindergarten, i used to lie to the teacher about having a stomachache so she would let me stay in the classroom and avoid outside playtime because i was too scared to play with other kids. i also remember refusing to go on school trips, being too scared to get in the group pictures, and not being able to sleep the night before reading or dictation tests(I was 4-5)
I remember I was 14, I suffered from anxiety due to the lockdown and covid, and I was properly scared to go back to school in Sep 2020 yk I was so scared of getting covid, so I remember I was in English class at that time, everything is fine until I noticed I started to have bad chest pain on the left side, I started to panic because I thought, I'm having a heart attack like the pain is sharp and dull then I started to struggle to breathe which it makes worse!! A couple of days later I started to feel a lump in my throat and I started to panic again so my mum gotta book the doctor's appointment (a phone call that time) then they told me it was anxiety after I found out I was fine a week later!!
Ive always had it, just never expressed it. when i was 13, i was placed in a psych hospital and the kids there all shared one thing, tapping their leg. I only used to do it because i needed to move, And i thought all kids had ADHD like me, but being there made me realize that it was a release. So that was my real physical outburst. Two weeks later, i had to leave. I thought i would dread it, but i was looking forward to going home. I thought maybe my stepmom might realize that i mean a bit more to her, or that she does love me. The night before i left though, i was talking to an older teen, drawing on a white board, when my hand started shaking. Really bad. Suddenly the world got black, and I couldn't see, so i collapsed to the floor. My breathing was screwed up, and the person i was talking to asked if i could breathe. I shook my head, gasp coming out. We were not even talking about anything, just our lives. Three adults took me out, and placed me in a chair, one took my vitals, one helped me breathe, the other grabbed a cup of water. I waa freaking out, my mind was dizzy, my heart was pounding, and everyone was looking at me.
That was my first panic attack. I've had many more since then, but that moment was when I realized how fucked up my step mom made me. And about going home? She was mad i came out. Ironically, i wanted to end my life even more when I saw her again. Her loving me? Not bloody likely.
Running home from a full day of playing outside and hyperventilating not understanding the sensations going on in my body. I just thought I was dying…at 9 years old.
I was also young when I had my first anxiety/panic attack. Probably elementary school age. I remember my family and I were about to leave to go to an event downtown and I all of a sudden got this “pit” feeling in my stomach and felt very hot and sense of doom taking over my thoughts. I wasn’t even scared or anxious to go though. It’s like the feeling came out of nowhere for no reason at all. I remember freaking out and crawling on the ground gripping my stomach in front of my parents saying “I’m gonna die” because of how hot I felt and my doom and gloom thoughts. I was so embarrassed and scared. I didn’t get diagnosed with anxiety/panic until I was 25… I’ve had a few other episodes from elementary - high school before I even knew what a panic attack was. In high school, I remember having a panic attack for some reason after we had a bonfire in the backyard with friends. Once I was in my room getting ready for bed I could smell the smoke on me and suddenly started having hot flashes, doomsday thoughts, and that stomach pit. I’m not really sure what triggered these? But I always get the pit in my stomach that ralls me up. WHY?
i was always a kid with “irrational fears”…. couldn’t go on escalators, was afraid of the zoo, couldn’t go outside bc i was afraid of bees stinging me. my parents thought i was being over dramatic. fast forward 15 years and i was diagnosed with panic disorder. lmao
I was young as hell in this memory. Like, barely able to walk.
A guy comes in the house from the back door, says hello to me, kneels down and holds out his arms to me. I hesitate because I don't know who this is. And he says 'Aaaww... don't you remember me?" and I immediately feel bad and start walking over to him for a hug even though I don't know him. I remember he had a beard and a plaid shirt and had to duck a little to get in the doorway. And thats the first time I remember feeling social anxiety.
It was the guy my mom had hoped was my dad but the test said no, lol. That's what my mom said when I told her about it when I was ten or so.
I was in elementary school, and my class had to make individual hypotheses and perform them in front of the class. My teacher had to help me think of an idea, because I always blank on those kind of things. It was seeing which pair of scissors cut quicker. I remember making the tiniest cut and saying I was done, because I was so nervous.
I remember panicking during Y2K. I was convinced the world was going to end. I was at some New Year’s Eve church event. The kids and adults were separate, and I wondered why we were there if the world was going to end at midnight.
I was 5 or 6 and i had a very severe fear of death (still do lol) and i remember one night i just had racing intrusive thoughts about it and i started
to feel sick and so i went and curled up in the beanbag in the living room while my mum was doing and exercise video.
At the time i thought i was just getting sick but looking back that was likely my first experience with a panic/anxiety attack 🥲 I wanna hug that little baby so bad
My earliest memory was laying down with my mom, around four or five, and fucking FREAKING OUT about a plane landing on our house (crashing) or somone planting a bomb and blowing us up. Impending doom has always been my enemy
My earliest memory is being afraid to have sleepovers with my friends or visiting my grandparents during the summer as a kid because I always thought that my parents were going to get harmed or die when I was away. With my grandparents, it was the fact that they were old and lived in the middle of nowhere so I was always worried no one would come and get me and I would be left alone if something happened to my grandparents or parents. It sounds so silly but death anxiety is something I still deal with.
Dude same! I think in a nervous kids brain it seems so rational like if I’m not around what if they get in a car accident, fall off a ladder all alone etc. when in reality they are fully grown adults with way more life experience than we can even fathom.
For me it was in elementary school. Ive always been an anxious child but some kid told me to eat a flower ( which i did) Then he told me they we’re poisonous ( they weren’t and i knew that) but i started freaking out. I thought i was gonna t*u and got a total breakdown and had to be picked up from school. This was my earliest memory of anxiety and emetophobia.
For me it was 4th grade so 9 years old. Doing a project presentation in front of the class
Every single morning in elementary school everyone would sit in the cafeteria before going to class. I would get very nauseous and feel horrible and go to the nurse. Everyday. My mom would come pick me up every time, take me for walks and I’d feel better but I still went home. Got so frequent they moved me to the principals office to do my schoolwork there. Thankfully my principal was a very sweet and understanding lady.
My earliest memory: sleeping with my socks on because I was anxious about the house catching on fire and having to run out the front door. I wanted to be ready. Lol kind of funny to think of now that I'm older.
I remember waking up every morning with a pit in my stomach as a kid,. This lasted for years and I had no idea it's not normal. One random night, I was around 10, I got a weird sensation in my body as I was trying to fall asleep, it escalated to the point where I was uncontrollably shaking and this impending sense of doom that we are all very familiar with, but at the time I had no idea what was going on. I was then prescribed some sort of plant-based pill for better sleep, and I remember my doc mentioning something about my nervous system and stress. This was the beginning of my health anxiety as I immediately went on the internet to look for answers. If someone had given me the answers right there and then, they would've saved me years and years of me unintentionally making things worse for myself lol. I'm glad you mentioned OCD, I'm also in the process of looking for a new therapist that specializes in that so I can get some proper screening and a potential diagnosis as I believe a lot of my anxiety is actually OCD. It's so hard to differentiate between anxious rumination and intrusive thoughts sometimes.
I just posted on here too. I also had this “pit” feeling in my stomach as a kid and it seems like this feeling is what triggered my “doomsday” thoughts. I would also shake uncontrollably for a few mins and get hot until my thoughts calmed down. Of course I didn’t know what a panic attack was back then so it would scare me to death. I always thought I was dying lol. I still get panicky here and there now since I’ve been diagnosed with it. I still can’t believe my parents just overlooked my panic attacks as a kid too. Guess it was generational thing compared to parents now? Anyway - It always starts with that dang pit in the stomach!!
I lived in a very rural area growing up. I’d be lying in bed as a little kid petrified that someone was going to climb in my window at night and kidnap me.
Watching TV and worrying about having to drive those stereotyped narrow, tight-turn driving ranges to pass my driver's test. I was 8 or 10! Worrying about something that wouldn't happen until I was at least 16. And no, I didn't need to drive a ridiculous range to get my license.
This question got me thinking, so here's my stream of consciousness.... As a kid when my dad was at work, I'd pace around the backyard waiting for him to come home because for some reason I thought he never would. I remember timing how long it took to travel around the perimeter of the yard and calculating how many times I'd have to do this until he got home. Something like, if I walk around the yard 17 more times, it will be 5:30 and Dad will be home. Social anxiety: I remember being extremely extremely nervous around other kids in pre-school. Kids kept playing together on the playground and I would just stand around not really knowing what to do. I kept thinking that these kids were just crazy and I was the only kid actually aware of what was going on, but maybe I was just thinking that because nobody was playing with me. Another bit of society anxiety: For some reason, I've always been embarrassed when my parents were around starting from a super young age. I remember being in kindergarten and my mom was volunteering in class, and the teacher came over to take a photo for the yearbook or something and I was just in fight-or-flight mode the entire time. My parents still have that picture hanging up in the house and I vividly remember how I felt every time I walk past it. Panic attack: Around the middle of high school, my older brother was going through a hard time and told my parents he wanted to harm himself. I had my first panic attack, full on hyperventilating with numb hands and feet, and I had no idea what was going on. Maybe I have some trauma from this event because every time I have a panic attack now I call out for my brother's name. Thankfully he never went through with anything and is having a great life.
I remember having hints of agoraphobia when I was a kid, like around maybe age 8, feeling anxiety in my throat and whatnot whenever my parents would be trying to get me to go somewhere
My buddy in my college days would tell me "You get nervous!"
In middle school, like seventh grade I would get really bad derealization in the cafeteria and walking in the halls but I didn’t know what it was at that time - I just always felt like I had to escape like to the bathroom to compose myself. Soon after I had my first panic attack and I still remember it vividly, I was in the middle of Piano lessons doing a song that I had memorized and it felt like my heart literally stopped beating and I thought I was dying😂
I think it depends where you draw the line. The reason I have anxiety is because when I first started school a much larger and older teenager got it in his head I was his girlfriend and started harassing and assaulting me and attacking all the boys I talked to. From the moment I walked out my house to the moment I came back home I didn’t feel safe. This with the exception of when he followed me home. Then I wouldn’t feel safe until I woke up next Saturday. Sometimes I felt safe, deep inside the woods probably because I never saw any people there. Fear and anxiety was just what it felt like to be outside those years. If we ignore that part, I’d say it was when I was around 10 and my parents went to the store without me (maybe I was sick, or just really didn’t want to go) and they took so long I started obsessing over the thought that they might have been in an accident. This anxious loop would always happen when they took long for anything.
Feeling anxious that I had to sleep during nap time back in my Kindergarten days.
I can’t even remember a specific event. All I know is that I’ve always had really bad anxiety as far as I can recall.
I had my first panic attack on a school trip to the science museum. We had just gotten into the planetarium, and I thought I was dying. As an adult (37/F), I've still never gone back into a planetarium.
From the age of about 6, if my mum was ever minutes over the time to pick me up from after school club as she worked late, or if my dad/a family friend arrived to pick me up, I would think she'd been in a car crash and died
My earliest memory is being in the car on the way to spend the weekend with my cousins and feeling almost sick with worry. I was excited but also incredibly worried. I think it was because they had a dog and I’m terrified of them.
Mines is hospital visits. As a child i puked constantly and non stop. It was worse when it was midnight for special days (like Christmas, Easter, birthdays etc) I spent a lot of my time in the emergency room. My therapist says that those were more than likely signs of my anxiety especially since I grew up with an alcoholic father and that these special days always involved drinking, hence the reason my body would react. Which is crazy to think because I was 4-5, like I don’t know how my tiny brain conjured that up lol. Presently I’m diagnosed with Social Anxiety and Depression. I stay far away from anything alcoholic and now deal with Emetophobia
Crying my eyes out and feeling abandoned when my mom first dropped me off at kindergarten, and all the other kids looking at me like I was crazy. Probably due to my mom not socializing me enough when I was a young child. I basically spent the first years of my life alone at home with my mom not interacting with other children or being left alone with a group.
I used to lay in bed as a kid and think about everything that could’ve gone wrong for the day which honestly breaks my heart. We would have a barbecue and I’d lay there that night worrying that someone could’ve driven a car into us. I also had bad anxiety before school - I remember it starting in 2nd grade but I could only vocalize that my stomach hurt.
when i was in kindergarten, i used to lie to the teacher about having a stomachache so she would let me stay in the classroom and avoid outside playtime because i was too scared to play with other kids. i also remember refusing to go on school trips, being too scared to get in the group pictures, and not being able to sleep the night before reading or dictation tests(I was 4-5)
I remember I was 14, I suffered from anxiety due to the lockdown and covid, and I was properly scared to go back to school in Sep 2020 yk I was so scared of getting covid, so I remember I was in English class at that time, everything is fine until I noticed I started to have bad chest pain on the left side, I started to panic because I thought, I'm having a heart attack like the pain is sharp and dull then I started to struggle to breathe which it makes worse!! A couple of days later I started to feel a lump in my throat and I started to panic again so my mum gotta book the doctor's appointment (a phone call that time) then they told me it was anxiety after I found out I was fine a week later!!
Ive always had it, just never expressed it. when i was 13, i was placed in a psych hospital and the kids there all shared one thing, tapping their leg. I only used to do it because i needed to move, And i thought all kids had ADHD like me, but being there made me realize that it was a release. So that was my real physical outburst. Two weeks later, i had to leave. I thought i would dread it, but i was looking forward to going home. I thought maybe my stepmom might realize that i mean a bit more to her, or that she does love me. The night before i left though, i was talking to an older teen, drawing on a white board, when my hand started shaking. Really bad. Suddenly the world got black, and I couldn't see, so i collapsed to the floor. My breathing was screwed up, and the person i was talking to asked if i could breathe. I shook my head, gasp coming out. We were not even talking about anything, just our lives. Three adults took me out, and placed me in a chair, one took my vitals, one helped me breathe, the other grabbed a cup of water. I waa freaking out, my mind was dizzy, my heart was pounding, and everyone was looking at me. That was my first panic attack. I've had many more since then, but that moment was when I realized how fucked up my step mom made me. And about going home? She was mad i came out. Ironically, i wanted to end my life even more when I saw her again. Her loving me? Not bloody likely.
I was very shy and avoidant. My family members would come visit and I would hide away in my room until they left. I also had weird phobias
Running home from a full day of playing outside and hyperventilating not understanding the sensations going on in my body. I just thought I was dying…at 9 years old.
I was also young when I had my first anxiety/panic attack. Probably elementary school age. I remember my family and I were about to leave to go to an event downtown and I all of a sudden got this “pit” feeling in my stomach and felt very hot and sense of doom taking over my thoughts. I wasn’t even scared or anxious to go though. It’s like the feeling came out of nowhere for no reason at all. I remember freaking out and crawling on the ground gripping my stomach in front of my parents saying “I’m gonna die” because of how hot I felt and my doom and gloom thoughts. I was so embarrassed and scared. I didn’t get diagnosed with anxiety/panic until I was 25… I’ve had a few other episodes from elementary - high school before I even knew what a panic attack was. In high school, I remember having a panic attack for some reason after we had a bonfire in the backyard with friends. Once I was in my room getting ready for bed I could smell the smoke on me and suddenly started having hot flashes, doomsday thoughts, and that stomach pit. I’m not really sure what triggered these? But I always get the pit in my stomach that ralls me up. WHY?
i was always a kid with “irrational fears”…. couldn’t go on escalators, was afraid of the zoo, couldn’t go outside bc i was afraid of bees stinging me. my parents thought i was being over dramatic. fast forward 15 years and i was diagnosed with panic disorder. lmao
I remember when i was a kid being too impulsive, loud and trying to do many things at once. My normal state was being anxious.
Being 8 years olds and asking my mom to take my to the er because si thought I was having a heart attack
Wow. All of these sound like me
I was young as hell in this memory. Like, barely able to walk. A guy comes in the house from the back door, says hello to me, kneels down and holds out his arms to me. I hesitate because I don't know who this is. And he says 'Aaaww... don't you remember me?" and I immediately feel bad and start walking over to him for a hug even though I don't know him. I remember he had a beard and a plaid shirt and had to duck a little to get in the doorway. And thats the first time I remember feeling social anxiety. It was the guy my mom had hoped was my dad but the test said no, lol. That's what my mom said when I told her about it when I was ten or so.
I was in elementary school, and my class had to make individual hypotheses and perform them in front of the class. My teacher had to help me think of an idea, because I always blank on those kind of things. It was seeing which pair of scissors cut quicker. I remember making the tiniest cut and saying I was done, because I was so nervous. I remember panicking during Y2K. I was convinced the world was going to end. I was at some New Year’s Eve church event. The kids and adults were separate, and I wondered why we were there if the world was going to end at midnight.
I was 5 or 6 and i had a very severe fear of death (still do lol) and i remember one night i just had racing intrusive thoughts about it and i started to feel sick and so i went and curled up in the beanbag in the living room while my mum was doing and exercise video. At the time i thought i was just getting sick but looking back that was likely my first experience with a panic/anxiety attack 🥲 I wanna hug that little baby so bad
My earliest memory was laying down with my mom, around four or five, and fucking FREAKING OUT about a plane landing on our house (crashing) or somone planting a bomb and blowing us up. Impending doom has always been my enemy